Dragoon had started experimenting with NPC's, with quests and all, but every time craftbukkit updated, the npc plugin broke. It had more down time than up time, it seemed. Supposedly they were saying MC was going to integrate it into the game itself, but have yet to see that become available for us yet either.
We are keeping this on the back burner in hopes something will come out thats more stable. Will try to keep you posted!